At the moment I am busy stitching dancers, fairies and girls. I love doing this because it's so much fun creating each little character. Which dress? Boots or dancing slippers? Crazy hair or tamed hair? Stripes and more stripes... And then the little french knot embellishments. It's a lovely calm time in between checking stock, packing and trips to the post office.

These two girls feel like dancers with their delicate shoes and dance poses.

fairies with attitude. I will also have some framed fairies once I have worked out the best way to back the oval hoops.

It has been such a busy two months I seem to be ordering supplies, packing kits and going to the post office for most of my working days. So exciting to be sending my kits to so many different countries. The all new post office staff in Penzance's sadly moved post office don't seem quite so excited by the number of parcels I'm taking them. I love to think of all those girls being stitched all over the world!!

Today however my desk is swamped in fairies! Not the kind that pack kits, order supplies or go to the post office sadly. In fact they are the kind that sit there reminding me to get on with the stitching. So, after what has turned out to be a very busy November, I have finally finished the 'fairy with attitude' pattern.

I love stitching this pattern. It feels like playtime after all the work stuff. I love choosing colours (mainly black white and red I've noticed!) and I love embellishing her hair, messing around with sock stripe patterns and wing possibilities ... Best of all she is deceptively simple

She can be stitched with an embroidered dress or with an applique dress. I recommend Liberty tana lawn for the applique as it is such a light strong fabric. If you are in the UK you can buy small pieces from here at Duck egg threads.

I think these fairies would make lovely stocking fillers. I also think a bedroom 'keep out' sign might be fun (or a craft room or a chocolate cupboard...)

I will have some hand stitched versions of these for sale by next week I hope probably in the same cushion form as the lavender girls so they can be hung up as decorations.

I'm also working on that little boy fairy cushion and hope to have a pattern for him next week, still enough time to stitch a fairy cushion before Christmas I hope!

I know quite a few of you are long since started on your Christmas stitching and I hope you are all enjoying it. I think I may need to start thinking about our family Christmas quite soon too! A bit of knitting maybe...

thanks to all my lovely customers my work table has been mostly full of kit supplies and packaging while I have been sending out such a lot of lavender girl kits! How lovely to think of all the lavender girls that are being stitched this winter.

But I have had a moment or two to carry on working on this 'fairy with attitude' design. I've used my absolute favourite Liberty fabric - red mitsy for this prototype. Sadly I can't get hold of any more but I may have enough for a couple of dresses!

I'm still tweaking the dress design and thinking of adding a stitched dress design as well as an applique pattern. I have a tutu idea in my head but whether it will work in stitch as well as it works in my head...

I love stitching with one strand of thread (using my super duper magnifying lamp!) because it looks so much more like my original drawing but I am also stitching her up using two strands to give a more solid line. I think she'll work with both but the effect will be different.

I used the round one for catching wishes and they are so easy to stitch and then frame in. I also love the little Victorian look hanger at the top. I think these may be easier for using in the kits too as they stay taut.

I love the lace and the Christmassy fabric. I was thinking of making her into a sort of mini quilt hanging...

I also have a little elf drawing on my work table that is soon to become a fairy cushion for boys. My own two boys were always very happy to have messages and gifts from the fairies so it's probably about time I designed a boy version!

I'm also messing around with my blog template so that it works on mobile phones and ipads, because not everyone is as old fashioned as I am and still using a laptop for looking at blogs! It will probably change again before I am happy with it...

I've discovered that sometimes there's a little confusion about what the different items in my shop are. I do try to be as clear as I can but sometimes what I might think is clear can be confusing to someone else so today's post is just to clarify the different items that I sell.

Firstly I sell PDF embroidery patterns. These are the cheapest option. You buy the pattern as an instant download and Etsy send an email with the pattern link and you then download it straight to your computer. You will then need to print the design and trace it onto your fabric, I have instructions for transferring the design here. The PDF contains the pattern, the pattern in reverse and a stitch and colour guide.

You can also buy 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 patterns together for a slightly cheaper price in my special offers section (I wasn't sure what else to call it!). If you want, for example, 3 different patterns, you can buy the three pattern packet and send a message to me to let me know which patterns you would like. I will then email the patterns to you within 24 hours. Sometimes I am superquick because I am at my computer but sometimes I am a little slower because I am in bed and you are in Australia but it should never take longer than 24 hours. These packets are not instant download as I need to email your particular choices out to you.

Next I sell fabric panels with the design printed onto them for you to stitch. I honestly don't know what to call these! I have called them samplers and fabric panels but nothing describes exactly what they are. If you choose this option it is a little more expensive, especially if you are ordering from outside the UK as it has to be posted but you don't have to do any transferring. You can start stitching the moment it arrives. You can choose to order the panel with or without the PDF, so if you know how you want to stitch it and what colours you want to use you probably won't need the PDF but if you want to follow the colours and stitches that I used then you will need the PDF. Again the PDF is emailed to you. At the moment I have four fabric panels available but I will be increasing this number

Finally I sell kits, these contain everything you need to stitch the finished product. You can choose whether to include a hoop or not depending on whether you already have a suitable one. By the end of the week I will have all the lavender girl kits back in stock along with winter dream, friends and fairy cushion. But they do tend to sell quite quickly and it takes a little time to gather all the materials together again to relist them. If there's a kit you especially want please feel free to message me and I will see what I can do.

I'm hoping that I have covered everything here but if you have any other questions about ordering from my shop or my products please do ask in the comments and I will, hopefully, be able to answer

A few weeks ago I received an email asking if I might be interested in reviewing the new Nancy Nicholson book 'Modern Folk Embroidery'. I am a big fan of Nancy Nicholson's colourful embroidery kits and already have her beautiful cat sampler waiting to be stitched up so I jumped at the chance.

I was sent a copy of the ebook. I have never had a craft book as an ebook before but I really enjoyed using it. It printed well and easily and I could just print out what I needed.

the book is really beautiful, she has a fabulous way with colour and I immediately wanted to stitch at least five of the projects but I didn't have any felt so I had to wait!

The projects are relatively simple in terms of stitching together. They range from pin cushions to full size cushions, hanging decorations to tote bags and even a table runner and a little folk doll. There are quite a few embroidered pictures for framing and some useful hints and tips.

I particularly loved the stitch library which groups the stitches into 'families' such as running and herringbone. She begins with the basic stitch and then gives you lots of ways to embellish the stitch. The diagrams are nice and clear but I would recommend practicing any unfamiliar stitches before stitching them onto your final project.

There is also a practical guide to tools and materials. Nancy favours an air removable pen which may be wise for felt but I have a water removable pen so that's what I used. The pilot frixion pen that I use for the fine lines of my patterns on linen/cotton wouldn't really work.

There are lots of beautiful projects in the book. It was so difficult to choose just one to stitch. I am absolutely going to have those beautiful hanging decorations all over the house!

Once my local buttons and bows had opened up the next morning I stocked up on gorgeous felts in beautiful colours. Once home I settled in with a coffee and Cerys on 6 playing on the i player radio to read through the instructions and start cutting pattern pieces and stitching.

The stitch instructions were easy to follow and I enjoyed feeling as though I was making it my own by choosing my felt and thread colours.

Nancy suggests tacking the pieces in place first and then removing the tacking afterwards which I did with the smaller pieces.

I normally stitch with a hoop (because I normally stitch on linen) but for this I decided to do without and it which was fine because the felt I used was quite stiff enough. I would recommend the good quality wool felt that she suggests (the white in my project isn't wool felt and was a little see through)

I drew lines and circles where I wanted my stitches using a water removable pen as I have a tendency to 'wander' when I am stitching

I loved the feather stitching on the tail. I did draw lines to follow so I didn't stray too far.

and, just like Wild Olive I loved the Eskimo laced feather stitch. The variations on running stitch are my favourite as they are so simple and yet so effective.

The eagle eyed among you may notice that the flower stalk is missing from the picture! I measured the bird and got so excited that it fit perfectly in my frame that I forgot about the flower! But I still love it, even without the flower.

I followed the stitching diagram quite closely but there are the most beautiful stitch pattern illustrations all the way through the book showing lots of combinations of stitches so you could use all kinds of other stitch combinations to create other birds.

There are diagrams for putting the projects together along with written instructions. I found it easiest to use both together.

I have already started on a second project from the book and have a list of Christmas presents and decorations to make from it too

This is the start of the cuff bracelet...

I love the fact that this book opens embroidery up, especially for the beginner. Once you've made all the beautiful projects that are in the book I think it will be difficult not to go on embellishing every textile surface in your home. Which is probably what I'm going to do

I'm hoping that if you click on this widget you will be able to look through the book but just in case my techy skills have failed me here is the link that should take you there. The book is available for pre order on both Sew and so and Amazon (where you can have a look inside).

I bought all my threads from Sew and So and my felt locally. There are a few suppliers of felt listed in the back of the book that I will be trying.

And now take a look at the other fab stops in the blog hop to see more pics from the book and what my fellow stitchers chose to make

I am still loving my slow stitching book and taking a little quiet time to stitch some patches. I'm not quite sure what I intend to do with them at the end of all the stitching but...

It got me thinking that I really do love my stitching to be simple and relaxing. I'm a huge fan of backstitch because it is so simple and does exactly what I need it to do.

You can change the kind of line you create by changing the number of strands. So for something delicate and sketchy like my catching wishes pattern I just used one strand of thread to give it an ethereal feel.

whereas feeling witchy is much bolder and uses two threads. I also love filling with back stitch. This could be because satin stitch is definitely not my strong point but I like the sketchiness of back stitch filler. And again it is different according to how many strands of threads you use.

So all this has got me thinking about filling the spaces.

A lot of the dresses for my girls have fabric appliqued to fill the space but sometimes I like to stitch the space.

So here are a few ideas about how to fill the spaces

There are always back stitch stripes, in the friends pattern I have used them for the hat and I often use them for tops and socks but they could also fill a dress nicely. I have a habit of using three colours, a dark colour, a lighter version and an ecru always seem to work nicely. You can either alternate them or you could have two rows of one and single rows of the others. It's fun to mess around and see what effects you get.

I often just add straight stitches, I tend to prefer this to satin stitch as it's less heavy and seems to suit the girls more

I also used straight stitches in some of the trees below. I find a pattern forms naturally as I stitch, but I will go back and undo if a stitch looks out of place. I think a variegated thread would work nicely with these straight stitches.

for winter dream I used seed stitch for her dress. I think this is my favourite way to fill dresses. It's so relaxing, making tiny (1-2mm) stitches, each one running in a different direction to the last.

I also sometimes like to create patterns in the spaces. I especially love star stitches, just four single stitches crossing each other as in her scarf above. Little crosses can suggest a knitted fairisle hat. You could have rows of crosses and V stitches alternating in different colours.

For the little reader I created a pattern for her dress rather than applique it. I made a blue french knot and then just radiated lemon straight stitches out from it. There are so many possibilities for filling those dresses and hats with very simple stitches and it's fun to mess around creating patterns with stitches.

I'd be interested to know whether you prefer simple stitching or to be challenged by more complex stitches and do you like creating your own patterns to fill the dresses or do you prefer to applique them?

There are tutorials for back stitch and french knots on my tutorials page

Inbetween busyness with dull admin stuff and lots of supplies ordering for the Christmas season this is what I have been doing, having fun with lavender girls.

I love playing around with liberty tana lawn scraps. I especially love the turquoise Betsy at the moment. The fabrics are (in a clockwise direction) grey Mitsi, yellow Kayoko, turquoise Betsy, red June's meadow. All these are available from Alice Caroline on Etsy .